Experiencing God's Love

[Lily flower]

Tell us about a time that you experienced God's amazing love for you.

 

[Lark]

This is a strange one.

At the time I experienced the greatest doubt about the existence of God, at least a God as understood by the world religions, ie an involved and loving God which is at once not reductive to a mere projection of humanity's best traits onto the cosmos, I experienced a number of coincidences.

At the time my doubt was compounded because I felt these where just coincidences. For a lot of hardened atheists this happens all the time and they dismiss it as cognitive confirmation bias, comforting illusions, stuff like that. I have to be honest too that I have thought like that on occasion. Or accepted something similar, that God would be unlikely to be involved with the minutea of detail about me personally.

Anyway, songs would come on the TV or radio which spoke to my dilemma, themes or ideas or concepts appeared across the media board, ie I'd read something in a book with resonated with me or spoke to my dilemma and then it was being discussed on the radio that evening, then it was a conversation at work, then on an online forum. Now this would be an understandable coincidence if it where something which was a hot topic in the news or if the links where particularly tenuous but they wherent and often the books where old books and while thematically linked it wasnt a direct or authorial link. It wasnt just the circulation of memes (I hate the meme theory BTW).

 

[Qlip]

This is a strange one.

At the time I experienced the greatest doubt about the existence of God, at least a God as understood by the world religions, ie an involved and loving God which is at once not reductive to a mere projection of humanity's best traits onto the cosmos, I experienced a number of coincidences.

At the time my doubt was compounded because I felt these where just coincidences. For a lot of hardened atheists this happens all the time and they dismiss it as cognitive confirmation bias, comforting illusions, stuff like that. I have to be honest too that I have thought like that on occasion. Or accepted something similar, that God would be unlikely to be involved with the minutea of detail about me personally.

Anyway, songs would come on the TV or radio which spoke to my dilemma, themes or ideas or concepts appeared across the media board, ie I'd read something in a book with resonated with me or spoke to my dilemma and then it was being discussed on the radio that evening, then it was a conversation at work, then on an online forum. Now this would be an understandable coincidence if it where something which was a hot topic in the news or if the links where particularly tenuous but they wherent and often the books where old books and while thematically linked it wasnt a direct or authorial link. It wasnt just the circulation of memes (I hate the meme theory BTW).

It is interesting, isn't it? All this can be explained with coincidence and confirmation bias. Yet the meaning of these things to a person can't be explained at all. Supposedly everything is chance, including the fact that we exist. Or is it chance when the path of the universe was fixed in the beginning with its own properties of behaviour. Either way, somehow, the universe exists in such a way that there are things in it who care about how the universe exists. It makes my mind spin.

What is God's love within the universe and how I understand it? I think it's just life and hope. Those things are always present.

 

[Lark]

It is interesting, isn't it? All this can be explained with coincidence and confirmation bias. Yet the meaning of these things to a person can't be explained at all. Supposedly everything is chance, including the fact that we exist. Or is it chance when the path of the universe was fixed in the beginning with its own properties of behaviour. Either way, somehow, the universe exists in such a way that there are things in it who care about how the universe exists. It makes my mind spin.

What is God's love within the universe and how I understand it? I think it's just life and hope. Those things are always present.

While that is true at what point do frequent coincidences become a pattern? Are the findings of science just the confirmation bias of scientists?

I know from considering carefully the framing of research in the past about how the proving and disproving of hypothesis can create difficulties or raise criticism or accusation of correlations being confused for causations.

Ultimately there arises the old chestnut that for those who need evidence there will never be sufficient but for those that dont there is no need. I tend to be middle of the road.

Also, when it comes to God and God's love I think that people expect more from God than they would from distant relatives, parents, family, friends, lovers or others which it is right to expect love from. I dont suspect that those people are indifferent or hostile towards me if they arent in contact all the time or intervening in my life daily, less do I suspect that they dont exist as a consequence.

 

[Qlip]

While that is true at what point do frequent coincidences become a pattern? Are the findings of science just the confirmation bias of scientists?

I know from considering carefully the framing of research in the past about how the proving and disproving of hypothesis can create difficulties or raise criticism or accusation of correlations being confused for causations.

Consider, for instance, miracles. Can't the very idea of them be described essentially as anomaly, and well timed coincidence? When their notability can only be defined by the people that they happen to, Science and Probability have no use for them, but we still do.

These questions go too deep for me, or at least deep enough that I'm not sure I believe there is a textbook answer somewhere at the bottom of the well.

Ultimately there arises the old chestnut that for those who need evidence there will never be sufficient but for those that dont there is no need. I tend to be middle of the road.

Also, when it comes to God and God's love I think that people expect more from God than they would from distant relatives, parents, family, friends, lovers or others which it is right to expect love from. I dont suspect that those people are indifferent or hostile towards me if they arent in contact all the time or intervening in my life daily, less do I suspect that they dont exist as a consequence.

I'm not a huge fan as seeing God primarily as a parental figure, but love also comes in the form of being confined to your room, having your car taken away, or just letting you for once reap your own consequences. You don't recognize that kind of love until you realize, or at least trust in its goal. Anyway, I'm not Christian, as you know, but I believe there is a goal, i.e. hope.

 

[gromit]

I don't know if I have. But I have heard that God cares for us through other people. I have felt the love and kindness of other people in my life. Or a feeling of peace or serenity.

And I try to act with kindness and love so other people can feel it too I guess.

 

[Anew Leaf]

This is why it is ultimately a leap of faith. I really don't understand the desire to nitpick what other people believe or how they believe things.

 

[Totenkindly]

Not even sure what to say, exactly, so this will be a ramble.

I've had kind of an internal war all of my life between the spiritual/intuitive perspective vs the rational one. The two tend to critique each other (one sees/experiences truth directly without a need for justification, the other seeks to "build a case" to discover truth), and I couldn't prioritize one over the other. It's why I sometimes label myself a Christian agnostic nowadays. I had trouble accepting as true beyond what I could rationally show, yet I was unhappy with a life that tried to shut out the spiritual.

I've had lots of small "spiritual" insights over the course of my life, plus a few moments where I felt like I got rocked out of the blue by something divine. Twice I've heard a voice I attributed to God speak to me, but inside, not heard with my ears but just bursting into my being without warning as if the word were spoken right into my heart.

(The first was when I warred about whether to change my life completely in my 20's, to the point of suicide, and finally I heard the word "Stay" -- it resonated so much that my depression immediately lifted and did not return for months/years after. The second, years later, I was running myself into the ground trying to use my creative gifts and make a career out of it, and during a talk by this man named Dan Allendar, I heard the voice say, "Die" to me in my heart... in the sense of letting go, at least for the moment, of all those intense and obsessive desires that were driving me, to the ambitions and crazy needs I was using to try and justify my existence... and I just started crying because I knew it was right. That I needed to let go. Both of those "words" I heard were what I needed to hear at that particular time of my life.)

If I had to just approach those experiences from a spiritual perspective, I would say that whatever benevolence/God exists in this universe was speaking to me. If I had to rationalize it, I can't say what it was at all... except that it's all been stuff I needed to hear/experience, in order to become whole and find peace.

I spent my life in this weird dance with God as per the Christian faith, and a few years ago, when I was finally realizing that I couldn't prove anything and it was all purely a matter of faith and perspective, I had this evocative dream where I woke up and my husband who I dearly loved was gone without explanation, and I was walking through the house crying, wondering why he had left me, since he hadn't seemed upset with me or wanting to leave. I could still smell his scent in the house, I felt like he was listening to me, that he loved me, but for some reason he was just not answering my cries.

What I finally came to was that I had always depended on him to take care of me and give me answers, and that now I was being given space to take care of myself and make decisions in my life based on how my heart had been shaped by faith and choice over the years, instead of always having some answer handed to me that I could show to others to justify my choices. It was shortly after that, that I finally reached a sense of peace with God about who and what I was, and no longer worried that he would be ashamed of me. I still struggle sometimes with feeling bad about not having people I care about approve of my choices in life, but not with the universe and not with God; I've had moments where I felt like God (or whatever that feeling of sublime congruence and benevolence and peace is) was the only thing I had to hold onto. I felt loved, even when I felt abandoned by everyone else I thought had promised to love me.

The only other experience in my life that has been similar was when I played the piano. There is a line from Chariots of Fire where Eric Liddell says that, whe he runs, he 'feels God's pleasure." And that is kind of how I've felt when I play, there's some deep, bottomless spiritual aspect to it. Profound love and joy and beauty from some endless source.

Aside from all that, I would say that God's love feels palpable when I am with my kids.

 

[The Outsider]

I've had glimpses of God, mostly in nature and art, but at rare times also in other people. Little things, that have brought me temporary happiness.

 

[Riva]

Is it not more appropriate to keep one's experiences with God to self?
I believe I read it somewhere.

 

[AphroditeGoneAwry]

Awakened became and born unto thee
Kiss'd divine in Heaven a priori
Soul joins body in earthly home
His respite always there, though I might be gone.

Glorious Days! oh deity fine
Whimsical mine eyes rest on thine
Spirit in Heaven and Body Christ
He protects me now, though I sin forever and thriced.

In the black of night existential knowing
Only illuminated by golden lunar glowing
Who will grant me respite in this lengthy life
Oh Great One lends strength, through my times of strife.

As I go about my worldly ways
Self-centered and wicked in perpetual stays
I seek what lacks, never fulfilled
While God gives me Love, real contentment instilled.




I knew Him when I was little, I think. I went to church and was very pious in thought and deed and spirit. Then I became an 'atheist,' though I always believed in some Tri Omni consciousness....Now I believe that is God and it just feels right and good for me to believe.

I think non-believers, while they can be very logical and loving people, seem to lack something that believers have; an open-minded soulfulness. Or something...

 

[kyuuei]

I was 15. I never saw, heard, or felt anything. But I experienced something, and I believe that something to be the work of higher..

 

[Coriolis]

It is interesting, isn't it? All this can be explained with coincidence and confirmation bias. Yet the meaning of these things to a person can't be explained at all. Supposedly everything is chance, including the fact that we exist. Or is it chance when the path of the universe was fixed in the beginning with its own properties of behaviour. Either way, somehow, the universe exists in such a way that there are things in it who care about how the universe exists. It makes my mind spin.

We contain our own meaning, and view everything that happens to us and around us with the lens of our own perception. This can color what we see in such as way as to make the relevant, useful, and insightful jump out, when we would have overlooked them before. We find what we need when we are open to it.

 

[Lark]

Consider, for instance, miracles. Can't the very idea of them be described essentially as anomaly, and well timed coincidence? When their notability can only be defined by the people that they happen to, Science and Probability have no use for them, but we still do.

These questions go too deep for me, or at least deep enough that I'm not sure I believe there is a textbook answer somewhere at the bottom of the well.

I'm not a huge fan as seeing God primarily as a parental figure, but love also comes in the form of being confined to your room, having your car taken away, or just letting you for once reap your own consequences. You don't recognize that kind of love until you realize, or at least trust in its goal. Anyway, I'm not Christian, as you know, but I believe there is a goal, i.e. hope.

This is mainly what I think, what I've highlighted, although I like to make conversation on it and find out peoples practical opinions, even if they dont provide the last word on the topic by any means.

I dont really think of God as a parent either, although I'm not sure I believe that God is any of the other things either, I've heard and read mystics describe God as a lover or friend but those are human relationships, although in discussing anything like for instance love its only natural to use some comparative or reference point.

Whether its God or parents most of the time they will not be able to mitigate or prevent harm caused by the natural consequences of personal choices, words or deeds.

 

[Lark]

This is why it is ultimately a leap of faith. I really don't understand the desire to nitpick what other people believe or how they believe things.

Which is similar to other relationships. Can it ever be evidenced sufficiently that significant others love or relate to you if you fundamentally doubt that they do?

I actually think that the decline of faith, devotion and religion in our age has its parallels in the decline of trust, independence and healthy relating to others, both are consequent of changes in attachment styles among children and adults and the impact of seperation anxieties earlier and earlier in life, sometimes with traumatic effect.

 

[Lark]

Is it not more appropriate to keep one's experiences with God to self?
I believe I read it somewhere.

I think it is sacrifices or penitence, at least it says so in the bible, Jesus says that if people do this for the reward of public recognition and receive that then they have received their reward and to expect nothing from God.

The sharing of mutually held beliefs in God and Jesus are encouraged in the bible and early traditions of the Christian church.

 

[Spurgeon]

Awakened became and born unto thee
Kiss'd divine in Heaven a priori
Soul joins body in earthly home
His respite always there, though I might be gone.

Glorious Days! oh deity fine
Whimsical mine eyes rest on thine
Spirit in Heaven and Body Christ
He protects me now, though I sin forever and thriced.

In the black of night existential knowing
Only illuminated by golden lunar glowing
Who will grant me respite in this lengthy life
Oh Great One lends strength, through my times of strife.

As I go about my worldly ways
Self-centered and wicked in perpetual stays
I seek what lacks, never fulfilled
While God gives me Love, real contentment instilled.

Amazing!

Did you write this or is it a quote? I Googled it but found nothing.


I feel God's love whenever I reflect on the Gospel, the Good News that through the person and work of Jesus Christ, his perfect life, death, and resurrection, God fully accomplishes salvation for us, rescuing us from judgment for sin into fellowship with him, and then restores the creation in which we can enjoy our new life together with him forever!

 

[tinker683]

I think non-believers, while they can be very logical and loving people, seem to lack something that believers have; an open-minded soulfulness. Or something...

I've heard this sediment among believers toward me time and again over the past decade or so since I deconverted and I really don't know how to respond to this as it seems like it's both a benign observation and at the same time an incredibly dismissive attitude. It's as if in response to all the soul searching that I've done over the years is being ignored or overlooked and that the reason that I'm not "seeing" what believers are seeing is because I'm just not putting my shoulder into it.

Anywho, to respond to the OP, much like Lark I've had points of time in my life in which it felt like I was being steered or guided to some decision or event. Even today I'll have moments where I'm struggling with something and a song or tv shoe will come on and someone will saying something very prudent to whatever it is I'm struggling with and I'll think, "Wow, I really needed to hear/see/experience that, that really helped me"

Is it chance that these things happened? Hell if I know, I'm glad they happened all the same

 

[Anew Leaf]

Which is similar to other relationships. Can it ever be evidenced sufficiently that significant others love or relate to you if you fundamentally doubt that they do?
I actually think that the decline of faith, devotion and religion in our age has its parallels in the decline of trust, independence and healthy relating to others, both are consequent of changes in attachment styles among children and adults and the impact of seperation anxieties earlier and earlier in life, sometimes with traumatic effect.

plain english, please. i don't understand what you are getting at with the bold.

 

[AphroditeGoneAwry]

We contain our own meaning, and view everything that happens to us and around us with the lens of our own perception. This can color what we see in such as way as to make the relevant, useful, and insightful jump out, when we would have overlooked them before. We find what we need when we are open to it.

I like your post in general, and I used to say things like this before I really believed in God again. But,

I don't often find what I think I need and I am very open.

I reconcile this by believing that what I think I need is different than what God thinks I need.

?

This is mainly what I think, what I've highlighted, although I like to make conversation on it and find out peoples practical opinions, even if they dont provide the last word on the topic by any means.

I dont really think of God as a parent either, although I'm not sure I believe that God is any of the other things either, I've heard and read mystics describe God as a lover or friend but those are human relationships, although in discussing anything like for instance love its only natural to use some comparative or reference point.

Whether its God or parents most of the time they will not be able to mitigate or prevent harm caused by the natural consequences of personal choices, words or deeds.

It seems oddly incestuous almost, doesn't it, to think of God as a lover? But isn't he all things to all people, including lover, parent, friend? And shouldn't romantic love ideally be akin to divine love in that it transcends what we've come to think about as 'romantic love' in our everyday lives; with it's intoxicating blend of eroticism, excitement, infatuation, and competition? If no one else can give me what I need, it is not a far leap for me to consider God as my lover as well as my Divine Guide, as weird as that sounds.

I've heard this sediment among believers toward me time and again over the past decade or so since I deconverted and I really don't know how to respond to this as it seems like it's both a benign observation and at the same time an incredibly dismissive attitude. It's as if in response to all the soul searching that I've done over the years is being ignored or overlooked and that the reason that I'm not "seeing" what believers are seeing is because I'm just not putting my shoulder into it.

Anywho, to respond to the OP, much like Lark I've had points of time in my life in which it felt like I was being steered or guided to some decision or event. Even today I'll have moments where I'm struggling with something and a song or tv shoe will come on and someone will saying something very prudent to whatever it is I'm struggling with and I'll think, "Wow, I really needed to hear/see/experience that, that really helped me"

Is it chance that these things happened? Hell if I know, I'm glad they happened all the same

I meant no offense...I'm thinking more of intellectual scientist types; those that think there is a Theory of Everything sans God.